Web Push Notifications for Small Businesses as a Stepping Stone

Web Push Notifications for Small Businesses as a Stepping Stone

Only two-thirds of small businesses survive almost for 2 years and those who survive, only sustain for 5. What is it with SMBs falling apart in such a short span of time? Read on to know how web push can help small businesses overcome the roadblocks and transform their business, by engaging, retaining, retargeting and ultimately increasing sales.

SMB’s usually venture into the unknown with just a handful of people. Most of the small businesses have little technical know how and are detached from the digital world. With skill sets hardly equipped as they should be, and cash flow limiting itself after one point of time, small businesses struggle to make their mark in the market.

Issues small businesses face:

Limited resources and expertise

Low budget

Building everything from scratch up

Even with a huge failure rate, it is estimated that over 90% of the world’s businesses are SMEs. Small businesses are growing at a rapid pace in the US; faster than the US GDP. There are roughly 28 million small businesses in America that account for 54% of US sales. Let see how can you get closer to conquering the market.

Journey towards digitization

Small businesses usually have to learn from the very basics and muster knowledge in the field they want to operate in. The sudden shift to the online sphere becomes overwhelming and too much to handle. At times like these, platforms like Resellerclub, provide small businesses a breathing space. Many small businesses approach agents who will help them out; from creating a domain to marketing them.

Challenges small businesses face

51% said driving sales and building brand awareness are top digital marketing priorities for small businesses. 43% of SMBs see themselves improving revenue growth by improving UX and retention. To achieve this, they need to implement a marketing channel to run things easily and see better results. What is that one marketing channel that could help them tackle these challenges?

Deciding upon a marketing channel

Once you have created a website, selecting the right marketing channel is tricky There are numerous marketing channels out there and zeroing down on one right solution can be a challenge. See what SMBs really want and which channel they can implement.

Small businesses look for marketing channels that are –

Cost effective

Simple to understand

Easily reach users

SMS and Email – Do they have what it takes?

To start with, both SMS and Email are considered as spam. SMS only reaches users on mobile and has many regulations surrounding it. It doesn’t support multimedia, unless of course it is an MMS. SMS receives a churn rate of up to 4%.

Email on the other hand, does the job for you, but it turns to be less effective as the times pass and tends to crams the user’s inbox. They no longer receive a high open rate and receives a click through rate of 1% – 5%. It becomes difficult for the user to distinguish between solicited and unsolicited emails and most of them often end up in the spam folder. Moreover, extracting email IDs is a tedious process in itself. The tools used to extract data are expensive and the data is not always updated. The extracted data then needs to be enriched, which further consumes time.

Website Push Notifications – Does it make the cut?

Web push notifications are crisp updates that are sent to users in real time, even when they are not on your website. As a communication channel, push notifications are cost-effective, easy to implement, and targets users on desktop, mobile and tab in one go. Businesses like CouponzGuru, have replaced email with web push notifications as it got amazing results.

Users are usually reluctant to share their personal information like phone numbers and email addresses. You might just lose a lead just because of this, and that something you can’t afford. With web push notifications, users don’t have to share their email address, all the users need to do is click on ‘Allow’ when the permission prompt is flashed on your website.

What value can Web Push Notification bring to the table

Web push notifications are packed with amazing features that will help you to –

Engage users from first touch point and generate leads

Retain users to drive repeat traffic

Retarget users to boost sales

According to leadpages, here are the goals of SMBs –

As you can see, web push pretty much covers most of them. With web push, small businesses have also substantially increased their subscriber base. FreshMenu leveraged web push notifications and skyrocketed all of their metrics. Here are few SMBs that have seen exceptional results in the span of one year.

NetworkBulls

AmigoBulls

How web push can help small businesses communicate better

It is all about reaching the right crowd and communicating the right way. You need to make the users feel involved and send them updates that would provide them with some value. Send relevant notifications so that they know you are specifically communicating to them and not randomly firing out notifications.

Segment users for effective retargeting

Web push notifications allow you to target a specific audience on basis of –

Interest and behaviour – Keep track on what your users like. Which categories do they always choose from? With ‘User Properties’, users can be easily segmented based on their interests. Once you know what the users prefer, you can send notifications accordingly. If you send notifications without keeping in mind their interest, they might just start considering you as spam.

Geography based notifications – Not everyone needs to receive notifications if it directly doesn’t cater to them. For example, if you have a sale exclusively for New York users, there is no reason why the notification should be sent to users in Chicago.

User actions – Once you have a solid subscriber base, you can segment them by the actions they perform on your website to target them better. You can segment users on basis of actions like ‘Users who have Added to Cart’ or ‘Users who made a transaction’ etc. By segmenting these audience, you can send out a notification specifically to them, encouraging them to make a purchase by upselling, cross selling or providing them with a discount.

Local time notification

Notifications need to be sent according to different time zones to avoid sending notifications to the users at the wrong time. If is a sale based notification, receiving an update after the sale got over is a bummer. You need to pay heed to the fact that timezones exist and that notifications need to be pushed accordingly. This is the very reason why you should schedule notifications keeping the timezones in mind.

Every industry has its peak time, in which you should send out notifications to get higher clicks. Don’t worry, it’s not difficult, all you need to do is select ‘Deliver notifications as per the subscribers timezone’, and it schedules your notification according to local time in just one click.

Native language

One is most comfortable in one’s native language. The text within the web push notifications can be written in numerous languages. This automatically attracts the user and throws in a personal touch and incorporates a sense of belonging. Figure out the language that is preferred by your target audience and impress them. This helps in building subscriber base and instantly engaging with the users.

Banner images

With web push supporting rich notifications, you can amplify your message with a banner image. Image-based notifications helps you to stand out from the crowd. Users can view the image based notification from their lock screen, making it simpler for the users to interact with it. Make sure that the image is relevant to the text of the notification. Adding effective visuals within the notification exemplifies the message you want to convey.

Revolutionize your business with web push

There are different ways you can make use of web push to attain a specific goal. Here are a few ways that have helped others create campaigns that convert.

Increase User Engagement with Welcome Notifications

We all know that the first impression is the best impression. You need to awe them from the first touch point. A welcome notification plays an important part in engaging the users from day zero. Show them that you are happy to have them. Give them a warm welcome and pamper them by sliding in a discount on their first purchase. Entice them with offers that are time-bound, which can also increase the chances of them converting faster.

Re-engage and re-target effectively

Sometimes it so happens that users are really active in the first few days of discovering your website, and then they simply phase out. You need to re-engage them and bring them back to your website and encourage conversions. Users sometimes forget that they have added an item to their cart. You can easily remind them and probably give them a special discount to encourage them to make a purchase.

Notifications about new offers, discounts, season based sales and trial expiry can easily notified to the users, to bring them back to your site. Notifications encouraging referrals can also be sent where the user an get special discount or referral points once they make a purchase. This increases the chances of not only building your subscriber base but also increasing sales.

Product updates and new product announcement

When you launch a new product, you need to inform the users about this. This also gives you an opportunity to upsell. You can build curiosity, with product updates and show them how it is better that the older version. This also helps to keep them in loop and avoid confusion and give them a seamless experience.

Making feedback super easy

Web push has made it easier for users to give feedback. No more lengthy forms, just for users to say they like your products or not. Users hardly have the time nor the patience to do so. With just one click, the users can give their feedback.

Flaunt content to build trust

You can easily inform users about the new blog post that you just published, or eBook that is there for grabs. It is easier to bring the users to your website by promoting your blog sometimes, rather than directly selling your product. You can also provide them with a detailed content on what your product is all about, quick tips to provide users some value out of it etc. White papers and articles boost your brand image and help to show off stats & facts.

Pravya Pravin is a Product Marketer at iZooto. An artist who paints not only with words, but also on canvas. She loves exploring places less traveled and wishes to go on a bike trip to the highest motorable road.